The biggest growth in bottled beverages isn't beer or soft drinks or juices; It's water.
Bottled water is the single largest growth area among all beverages, that includes alcohol, juices and soft drinks. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over the last decade. While the recycling rate is extremely low, the demand from recyclers is actually quite high.
These so called PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) containers (fizzy drink bottles, cordial bottles, cooking oil bottles), pile up as mountains of waste.

The era of cheap oil is over - new discoveries are generally harder to find, more expensive to extract, and more expensive to refine. The world is now consuming around 1000 barrels of oil per second, so the prices are likely to remain elevated, over time. On the other hand, the stream of plastic waste is literally drowning us. Now we might be able to shoot two bird with one stone.

A better way to reduce waste created by plastic bags and other packaging than by skipping the stuff altogether, which is precisely what a London grocery shop does. While some packaging is recycled, most ends up in landfill sites and some packaging is just difficult and often impossible to recycle.

Plastics are a valuable natural resource. They are derived from fossil fuels and are created at substantial energetic and environmental cost. And yet we have come to treat plastic as the ultimate throw-away consumer commodity - using them in an all-pervasive multitude of short-term applications.

Bioplastics (also called organic plastics) are a form of plastics derived from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable oil, corn starch, pea starch or microorganisms, rather than fossil fuel plastics which are derived from petroleum. Because of their biological degradability, their use is especially popular for disposable items, such as packaging and catering items (crockery, cutlery, pots, bowls, straws).

Burger joints toss billions of burgers a year (Mac Donald's alone serves about 2 billion), each individually wrapped in plastic coated paper and thrown into a paper bag with a few paper napkins. That's more than 100 per second, worldwide. Throw in a dozen other fast food conglomerates and we’re up to our necks in greasy garbage. What’s worse is that most of this paper makes its way into a trash can after only about 5 minutes of use.

Bottled water is healthy than tap water? That’s what marketers would have us believe. Just look at the labels or the bottled water ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks; healthy, active people gulping down icy bottled water between biking in the park and a trip to the yoga studio. Whether bottled water is better than tap water, and justifies its expense, remains under debate.

There's something about the smell of a new car. To many people, the leathery aroma that hits you when you slide behind the wheel is a pleasurable scent, perhaps even addictive. Nearly every solid surface inside a vehicle is a fabric or plastic that is held together in part with adhesives and sealers, primarily alkanes and substituted benzenes along with a few aldehydes and ketones.

Most foods are still packed in plastic, which not only fills landfills and pollutes oceans, but also perpetuates petroleum consumption. Now we are beginning to see more prominent use of biodegradable disposable food packaging, particularly at green-oriented festivals and natural groceries. These "Bioplastics" are becoming a burgeoning industry as the cost of oil climbs and the disastrous nature of petroleum-based plastics is revealed in full effect.

If you go down to the woods today you're sure of a big surprise because the whole place will probably be littered with plastic plates, cups and utensils left behind by lazy picnickers. Most supermarkets stock a choice of paper plates, napkins and disposable plastic cutlery in cheerful designs; but they're mostly eco-unfriendly plastic utensils.